The Southland can expect up to an inch of rain and solid wind gusts throughout today and Wednesday as a heavy punch of snow coats the mountain areas.

A winter weather warning calls for up to 4 inches of snow at elevations as low as 2,500 feet.

Strong winds - some reaching 55 mph - are expected with the approaching cold storm. Showers are expected late this afternoon and evening, with a slight chance of thunderstorms.

Accumulating snow will most likely affect travel on major roadways into or through the mountains, including portions of Interstate 5, portions of Highway 14 through the Soledad Pass between the Santa Clarita Valley and the Antelope Valley, officials say.

Snow will fall so low on local mountains tonight that the Ortega Highway in eastern Orange County has been added to a list of mountain passes that might get snowbound, officials with the National Weather Service said.

A winter weather warning calls for 2-4 inches of snow tonight and Wednesday on the Ortega Highway, Route 74, as it crests at 2,600 feet above sea level just west of Lake Elsinore.

North of Los Angeles, heavy snow and blizzard winds are expected along Interstate 5, which is above the 2,000-foot level for about 40 miles in the mountains north of Castaic. That snowfall should start this afternoon, and intensify overnight and into Wednesday morning.

Sixty-mile per hour winds were forecast for the Grapevine, and isolated snow-thunderstorms could develop and drop more than a foot of snow in some places, the NWS warned.

Los Angeles County road crews planned to close Angeles Forest Highway and roads in the Big Tujunga Canyon area at 3 a.m. today, in advance of the storm.